After the Beer Hall Putsch failed in November 1923, they called the leader of that coup a “clown”.

Those who underestimated that clown and remained silent as he rose to power learned a hard lesson: Clown with a “clown” at your own peril.

It is worthwhile to heed the message of Martin Niemöller, the Protestant minister who spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps because of his opposition to Der Führer.

Niemöller regretted his silence as the Nazis undertook a series of measures designed to demonize and isolate Jewish Germans from their fellow citizens and his failure to speak up against the broader silent complicity he saw in German society with the Nazis as they implemented their Final Solution:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

There are some who say Trump is “just channeling the bigotry of the Republican Party’s base.” Is Trump the Republican Party’s Frankenstein?

Donald Trump thinks he can mobilize White voters by exploiting their fears and prejudices. He believes all Whites are closet racists and he can awaken some sort of latent racism in as many White voters as he can by preaching blatant racism which he dresses up as “telling the truth.” He aims to embolden the wingnuts among his followers to use the same divisive and denigrating language thereby gradually making bigotry and prejudice acceptable and even respectable.

Trump’s strategy is to stoke the anger of white voters so that they will come out in massive numbers to vote for him and offset the demographic shifts in the United States that have handed electoral victories in the last two presidential elections. He thinks he can best accomplish that by spreading fear and loathing against Muslims and undocumented immigrants, the two most vilified and discriminated groups in America, and by promoting Islamophobia and xenophobia. He smears Muslims with “big lies” by claiming they celebrated the 9/11 attacks and by citing bogus poll data to argue that large percentages of Muslims in America support jihadist terrorism.

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it,” said Joseph Goebbels.

People believe the big lies because other people refuse to speak small truths of their own.

Trump is not a clown. He is a dangerous demagogue.

Trumps says, “If I win the election for president, we are going to Make America Great Again.”

The Neo Nazi leader Andrew Anglin said in his blog, when Trump is elected president we will “Get all of these monkeys the hell out of our country – now!” and “Make America White Again.”